News

Enhanced credit for "Dead Time"

The SCC agrees that the 'Truth in Sentencing Act' isn't truthful at all and says offenders collecting "dead time" should received enchanced credit if nothing more than for their loss of statutory remission. Prior to this Act, people routinely got credit at a ratio of 2:1 to account for the lack of programs available during remand time for prisoners as well as the fact that any time spent in custody prior to sentencing would not be considered by corrections in determining statutory remission and when parole would be granted. Consequently, the new Act limited the credit people were receiving to 1:1 credit, but this completely disregarded the earlier considerations which originally led to the 2:1 ratio.

As a result, since the Act has been in force over the past couple of years, it has meant that a prisoner who got, for example, a sentence of 1 year in jail but who either made bail or was sentenced right at the outset, then they would receive remission on the full 1 year sentence and would therefore only serve 2/3rd of the sentence for a net total of 8 months in prison.

Compare that example to the SAME offender for the SAME offence but was denied bail and did not get convicted until his trial 6 months after the offence occured. In his case, he would have received 6 months credit for his dead time and would do 2/3rds of the remaining 6 months sentence for a further 4 months, resulting in a net total jail time of 10 months in custody even though it is for the exact same crime!

Does that seem fair to you? It doesn't to us either. And thankfully the SCC agreed.